Most Popular Classes / Races on D&D Beyond (2023)

[Psyren]

For the folks who enjoy poking through data as much as I do. (https://dice-scroller.com/en/most-popular-dnd-classes-and-races/#about) Thought this might be interesting for some.

Obtained by Maxime Bonnin via python scripts targeting 1.2 million character IDs on the site.
Take with a heaping grain of salt; in the author's own words:



About the Data
I’ve tried to find a good dataset of D&D characters online but haven’t really found much. There is an old dataset on GitHub which includes about 8.000 entries. This is a nice start but I wanted more!

I used python to get data from dndbeyond.com. About 1.2 million characters are included in this version. The full new dataset also includes much more information about things like background, stats and even character names! Feel free to use it for your own analysis if you are interested.

Issues with the Data
One big issue you may quickly notice is that there are very few artificers. Why could this be? I’m not too sure but my first idea is that they are the only class that is not available for free. They were also introduced later than other classes and may therefore be underrepresented in the dataset because I just started collection characters by IDs which may introduce a bias towards older characters.

Other than that, I believe the data to be pretty solid. Paid content seems to be less popular, which makes sense. Even though some combinations like Tabaxi Rogue still are used a lot.

These likely aren't the only issues (e.g. it's not clear how many of these characters are being actively used in campaigns, duplicates, multiclass etc.) but I thought this might be interesting / spark some discussion. And yes, Human Fighter still rules the roost.

[Dork_Forge]

I think the data's too flawed for any real conclusions, but looking at it made me go 'that's a race on Beyond?' So I definitely got something out of it.+

Edit: Ah, upon closer examination I'm not really sure if this is really useful for anything. As of May the creator said that it is about 1.2 million characters out of at least 35 million, making it a very small snapshot that is heavily hit by date bias and (to some degree) duplicate entries.

[Psyren]

I think the 35MM are private/inaccessible characters?

Yeah I'd be interested if he can drill down into subclasses and multiclasses to some degree. But I think in the broad strokes it's interesting nonetheless. Sure, I expected Fighter, Rogue, Wizard and Cleric to be in the top half, but I didn't think there would be more Paladins than Wizards for example.

[Dork_Forge]

I think the 35MM are private/inaccessible characters?

Yeah I'd be interested if he can drill down into subclasses and multiclasses to some degree. But I think in the broad strokes it's interesting nonetheless. Sure, I expected Fighter, Rogue, Wizard and Cleric to be in the top half, but I didn't think there would be more Paladins than Wizards for example.

The last part isn't really all that surprising to me, time Paladin is a more popular class than Wizard. Could be the shining knight trope, the meme-like popularity and feel-good of smites, or just that it is a comparatively simpler/easier to run class than Wizard, which is basically micromanagement as a class, even compared to most spellcasters.

[Derges]

The last part isn't really all that surprising to me, time Paladin is a more popular class than Wizard. Could be the shining knight trope, the meme-like popularity and feel-good of smites, or just that it is a comparatively simpler/easier to run class than Wizard, which is basically micromanagement as a class, even compared to most spellcasters.

The other problem is that you don't really need to do experimental builds with a wizard. With melee characters, you might try several class/race combinations to work out what you want. This could easily bias the data.

[Witty Username]

The last part isn't really all that surprising to me, time Paladin is a more popular class than Wizard. Could be the shining knight trope, the meme-like popularity and feel-good of smites, or just that it is a comparatively simpler/easier to run class than Wizard, which is basically micromanagement as a class, even compared to most spellcasters.

Not to mention most new players are recommended to avoid wizard, (my personal gripes notwithstanding). I am kinda surprised wizard is as popular as it is.

[Atranen]

I think the data's too flawed for any real conclusions, but looking at it made me go 'that's a race on Beyond?' So I definitely got something out of it.+

Edit: Ah, upon closer examination I'm not really sure if this is really useful for anything. As of May the creator said that it is about 1.2 million characters out of at least 35 million, making it a very small snapshot that is heavily hit by date bias and (to some degree) duplicate entries.


I agree. Looking just at levels, almost half of all characters are 1st level...which tells me that most of these characters are probably not being played, and come from people messing around on DnDBeyond. Even if it is a representative sample of DnDBeyond, it isn't a representative sample of what people are actually playing.

(Which is kind of worrying if WoTC are using DnDBeyond data to make decisions...)

I get the appeal of big datasets like this, but I think we would do better to manually record info from people who register for convention games, or something. Send someone to GenCon to write it all down. Much less data, but much higher quality.

[KorvinStarmast]

I agree. Looking just at levels, almost half of all characters are 1st level...which tells me that most of these characters are probably not being played, and come from people messing around on DnDBeyond. Even if it is a representative sample of DnDBeyond, it isn't a representative sample of what people are actually playing. It's information, but is it data?

[Yakmala]

I'm shocked to see Custom Lineage so low on the list, considering that I see them everywhere these days. Private games, games at local game shops, D&D virtual weekends, conventions, etc. Roleplayers like making their own character variations and optimizers like that it lets them start with an 18 in their primary attribute.

[Dork_Forge]

I'm shocked to see Custom Lineage so low on the list, considering that I see them everywhere these days. Private games, games at local game shops, D&D virtual weekends, conventions, etc. Roleplayers like making their own character variations and optimizers like that it lets them start with an 18 in their primary attribute.

Not really surprising, the data is a very small subset and date-biased. With CL coming in Tasha's they're likely underrepresented.

[Witty Username]

There is also some personal play behavior, no data but I sure at least a few other people do it it like this, where I tend to use Custom lineage primarily when existing species don't really fit the character. In terms of optimization human is still pretty competitive, and it rarely has issues fitting a concept.
Also given the controversy, I expect some people table ban custom lineage, for thematic or gameplay reasons.

I wonder if there is a good test gaming hypotheses, with a data set we can only guess why, we have just a slice of what.